Last month the International Energy Agency announced that China would probably surpass the United States as the world's largest contributor of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2009, more than a full decade earlier than anticipated. -- http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003957.html

China is the new big dog on the block with a rate of growth which is itself accelerating. Curse my sleepy brain, as I can not recall the source, but I saw some Chinese growth projections compared to CO2 production for various countries. There are many first world countries with total CO2 output levels lower that what China will be adding as an increase on an annual basis.

And just to stay on topic, another thanks for the great collective mockery. (or should I be thanking UD for that?) I may no longer visit on daily basis, but long will this thread retain an honored spot near the top of my bookmarks.

(Treading very carefully...) He writes with great fervor about randomness and genetics:

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I've caught folks trying to tell me that DNA is a random assembly of nucleotide base pairs. Random. Think about it… if DNA were "random", I should have no reasonable expectation that my offspring would be human. Or even viable as an organism. And oh yeah, I wouldn't even be here. You see, these folks are all over the map.

In 2000, his infant son was born with a genetic condition known as Trisomy 13, and died after just 18 days. I wouldn't wish pain like that on anyone. But it makes one wonder about the motivations for his position, vis my essay here.

--------------Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."- David Foster Wallace

"Hereâ€™s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."- Barry Arrington

If one defines the universe as consisting only of material forces, there is no intelligent designer and hence there can be no intelligent design. Materialism thus rules ID out of bounds, and holds it to be false, by definition.

Nonsense. Science studies intelligent designers all the time. There are entire fields of study, such as archaeology and forensics, dedicated to such studies. What science can't study is an Intelligent Designer defined in such a way as to be beyond the reach of empiricism. Contrary to the claims of the Intelligent Design Movement, there is simply no scientific evidence to support the assertion of an Intelligent Designer as an explanation of biological patterns.

--------------Proudly banned threefour five times by Uncommon Descent.There is only one Tard. The Tard is One.

However, a comment from Fross cuts to the chase (methinks Fross is not long for UD!)

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two words:

Lee Strobel.

Let’s assume these guys want a purely scientific debate. Having Lee Strobel on the bill makes it look like a religious seminar aimed at trying to make their views seem scientific. The guy is 100% a Christian apologist and a strict Bible literalist.

Erm, Fross, it's your side that's organised this debate! Everybody else thinks that ID and this seminar is "aimed at trying to make their views seem scientific" already. Glad to see you've caught up with the rest of us Fross. Now, about the blogs you choose to comment on.....Link

--------------I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot standGordon Mullings

Millenia of dog-breeding somehow didn’t cause people to institutionalize the application of the same principles to humans.

Don't know much about history, do you? Start with genocide in the Bible and work your way up to the Mongols. Did you know there are about 16 million copies of Genghis Khan's Y-chromosome in the world today, about 8% of the male population of the area of the Mongol Empire at the time of his death. That's what comes of killing all the men and subjugating all the women. Genghis knew all about making sons. Didn't know much about biology, though. Probably not much French either.

I don't know much about the history now Don't know much about biology Don't much about the science book Don't know much about the french i took All i do know is i love you now And i wonder if you love me, too Ooh what a wonderful world this could be.

I don't know much about geography now Don't know much about trigonometry now Don't know much about the algebra Don't know what a slide rule is for But i do know one and one is two now And i wonder if you love me, too Ooh what a wonderful world this could be

--------------Proudly banned threefour five times by Uncommon Descent.There is only one Tard. The Tard is One.

Not at all, Sal, "Darwinists" debated "you" in Dover, in Ohio, in Kansas, and in Georgia. In COURT, where it really counted. Where "you" could present any evidence or witnesses that you wanted, where "you" could put all the "darwinists" in your big bad vise and ask them any hard tough questions you wanted.

Not at all, Sal, "Darwinists" debated "you" in Dover, in Ohio, in Kansas, and in Georgia. In COURT, where it really counted. Where "you" could present any evidence or witnesses that you wanted, where "you" could put all the "darwinists" in your big bad vise and ask them any hard tough questions you wanted.

"You" lost every time.

"You" shot your load. "You" lost. "You" have nothing new to add.

"You" aren't worth bothering with any more.

Not only that, but traditionally taking part in a debate *might* lead you to changing your mind about something (you know, learning something new and changing your position because of it, that kind of thing).

However Sal et al simply cannot change their mind about any part of their position ever. To do so would lead them to consider the rest of their "positions" also and they might find the basement is really full of sand. And shifting. Or they end up crazed (JAD?) with the cognative dissonance of it all!

These "debates" are not really debates at all, might as well call them book readings. The audience is only there to get their preexisting beliefs reconfirmed. Hardly "debate" is it?

--------------I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot standGordon Mullings

posted a reference the other day to a peer-reviewed paper by two Finnish ID-supporters that I claimed supported ID. The paper highlighted that evolutionary methods work to the degree that they are directed.

That's not accurate. In fact, the paper specifically says that Rapid progress and impressive results have been made towards this goal using rational design and random techniques or a combination of both, and There is also overreliance on the Darwinian blind search to obtain practical results.

In other words, progress is being made by Darwinian search, but faster progress might be possible in order to obtain practical results (meaning useful to humans) by implementing rational design. However, due to theoretical limitations, we need to rely on a combination of both.

So the paper concludes that Darwinian search has been useful in the past, is useful in the present, and will continue to be useful in the future. But that a better understanding will allow rational design in the future. And this paper was written by a Creationist.

--------------Proudly banned threefour five times by Uncommon Descent.There is only one Tard. The Tard is One.

However, a comment from Fross cuts to the chase (methinks Fross is not long for UD!)

Quote

two words:

Lee Strobel.

Let’s assume these guys want a purely scientific debate. Having Lee Strobel on the bill makes it look like a religious seminar aimed at trying to make their views seem scientific. The guy is 100% a Christian apologist and a strict Bible literalist.

Erm, Fross, it's your side that's organised this debate!

Oh, Fross went off script a couple times yesterday. Check out this comment (in part):

Quote

Would something like dog breeding be considered ID? (and therefore something like eugenics?)

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

one wonders how long it'll take DS and Dumbski to get bored of the commenters who are left after all the people who speak out of turn get banned. I mean, that barrel's got to have a bottom *at some point*?

And here's a prediction. If Dumbski does abandon UD, will DumbScot continue to publish monthly figures for hit counts? I say no. After all, most of the visitors to UD I imagine are only there to see a "professor" make a fool of himself over and over. Once that attraction goes, will DS have the same draw? Nahh....A cheesy poof eating moron spouting on subjects he knows nothing about? Pchaww, internets full of those already!

--------------I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot standGordon Mullings

Sorry for the off-topic but I wanted to leave a note for Blipey and I know it'll get to him if I leave it here.

I was checking the calendar to make sure there weren't any all day soccer tournaments on Sunday, May 13th, and was reminded that's Mother's Day. I won't be available for any meetings on that day.

10:19 PM

Unreal. A typical bully/coward.

Reminds me of those kids in grade school that would call the bigger kids names, and when the bigger kids had finally had enough and went after him, he'd run and hide behind the teacher...

What a Marine-pussy...

Oh - Rich - why do I think Popper and Kuhn are overrated.

First, neither (and, as far as I can tell, none of the 'biggie' philiosophers of science) actually had any experience in engaging in scientific pursuits. Sort of like some Joe Sixcpack couch potato who never played football screaming at a quarterback in the NFL "You suck! I could have done better than that!"Second, neither seem to accurately portray the manner in which science is actualy engaged in, and worse, according to some of their acolytes (Lakatos for example) science is basically worthless and no better at finding 'truth' than sociology. Several years ago (in the 1980s or 90s), there was a series of letters exchanged in Nature (I think - can't remember exactly right now) on the issue of the philosophy of science, and after the philosophers that were involved basically claimed science to be a farce (in so many words), a scientist replied to the effect that it was an interestign exchange on a topic that essentially means nothing.

So, they can philosophize away, and I don't really think it will have much of an impact on anyone except those who are outside of science and read their work and think they can then dismiss anything claimed by scientists (which I have seen happen).

Define “strict Bible literalist.” I’m not sure, but I don’t think that Lee Strobel is a Young Earth Creationist… I’m pretty sure he accepts an old Earth. Seems pretty hard to be called a “strict Bible literalist” and be an old-Earther at the same time.

I think I’m the only one here who read this and I found it (among other things) really instructive in terms of the aims of someone like Dembski, aside from the short-term goals indicated by the nefarious Wedge.

Dembski plays both sides at UD, the YEC and the Old Earth paradigm, very…I don’t want to say skillfully, because it’s so obvious a con to me, but for the average confused commenter, skillfully, I guess. I don’t know how people can be taken in so easily by him, but they are. I came away, once again, thinking that he is not a YEC, but he doesn’t want to lose one YEC sheep. He is one control freak. One would think that his Designer could take care of Himself.

Long paper short: I don’t believe that australiopithicines like “Lucy” never had bad thoughts or never committed what are called sins, until Homo sapiens sapiens were “brought into the Garden” where they committed “the Fall.” I think our hominid ancestors faced the choices and dilemmas (“evils”) of their own time and that everything they did helped us to become what we are. They deserve credit for that, not denial of being our ancestors nor denial of their nobility through denial of any ignobility. Likewise, “the Fall” could never be any one act at any time (or could it be the first time one cell consumed another?), as if life were a great glass globe to be irrevocably shattered in a moment.

--------------Which came first: the shimmy, or the hip?

AtBC Poet Laureate

"I happen to think that this prerequisite criterion of empirical evidence is itself not empirical." - Clive

I think I’m the only one here who read this and I found it (among other things) really instructive in terms of the aims of someone like Dembski, aside from the short-term goals indicated by the nefarious Wedge.

Crikey, Kristine! That paper you linked to was an incredibly compelling reminder about why I gave up reading theology years ago. Only a few pages in, we find this incomprehensible paragraph, focusing on things (e.g. angels, the Fall) which can never be proven to exist. Why would anyone waste time on "thinking" about stuff like this?

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Mainstream Christian theology used to explain the origin of evil as follows: Evil is the result of a will that has turned against God. Just why a will should turn against God, however, is a profound mystery (2 Thessalonians 2:7 refers to “the mystery of iniquity”). Since everything is created by God, a will that turns against God is also created by God. But a good God presumably created a good will. How, then, could a good will turn against God? I’m not sure that any final answer can be given to this question. Invoking freedom of the will is little help here. To be sure, freedom of the will contains within it the logical possibility of a will turning against God. But why should a good will created by a good God exercise its freedom in that way (for instance, Christian theology teaches that there are good angels whose wills never turned against God)?

Got that? There will be a quiz tomorrow.

One of our local Baptist ministers has a website where he posts his turgid musings on similar topics. Since I got into a letters-to-the-editor exchange with him a while back on the topic of science and evolution, I peek at his ponderings every so often (I think I am probably the only person ever to visit this site). Here is one of today's musings, evaluting the "reasoning" for the doctrine that God is immutable.

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Let us think of the doctrine of creation in light of immutability. In one sense God has already created and so that could never change in terms of fact. But if God changed, would the laws of “nature” be changed as well? Would God change His mind about gravity? What if He decided to move the sun closer or farther away from the earth? What if He decided that He liked a faster rotation of the earth? We also know that God upholds the world by the word of His power. What would happen if He decided not to do that? When we look at the teachings of Scripture regarding the Trinity and of creation, both depend on the attribute of immutability. Every day when we get up, we depend on God’s immutability whether we recognize that or not. When we walk outside and the sun is shining, we can only walk and the sun can only shine because God has not changed.

Like Dembski, he can just crank this stuff out endlessly. I wouldn't recommend a visit to his site unless you have a serious problem with insomnia.

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

Slpage: I'm a big Popper fan, because 'no black swans', empirical falsification, makes science perpetually open, hungry, subject to revision. Compare that to scripture. We never claim to be right, only to use the best current explanation given the data and the models fit. We are prepared to be wring and welcome it, because in revision comes greater understanding.

Slpage: I'm a big Popper fan, because 'no black swans', empirical falsification, makes science perpetually open, hungry, subject to revision. Compare that to scripture. We never claim to be right, only to use the best current explanation given the data and the models fit. We are prepared to be wring and welcome it, because in revision comes greater understanding.

Rich

Rich - I agree with the 'spirit' of the falsification criterion, but a direct application of it is unrealistic. That is, how often do scientists come up with an idea and say to themselves, "Hmmm... Now how can I go about falsifying this?"

If it is not falsified, is it not science (this is a little claim of creationists on occasion - because ToE has not been falsified, it isnot scientific...)? If it is falsified, then what? A more realistic application - and what, as best I can tell, actually happens - is that any new observations/experiments done with regard to a new (or ol) hypothesis/theory are de facto attempts at falisification. That is, scientist X sets out to 'test' an idea in the hopes that the results will be supportive. It seems to be human nature.

If the test ends up not comporting with the idea, then one would hope that scientist X reformulates his/her idea and tries again.

I totally agree that any iteration of this is anathema to creationists, but that wasn't my point. My point is that the 'biggie' philosophers of science took things to an illogical extreme in many cases, and so have been over-relied upon in many cases.

One of our local Baptist ministers has a website where he posts his turgid musings on similar topics.

Quote

Every day when we get up, we depend on God’s immutability whether we recognize that or not. When we walk outside and the sun is shining, we can only walk and the sun can only shine because God has not changed.

Q: How many lightbulbs does it take to change God?

A: Only one, but he really has to want to change.

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

Dogs are possibly the most widely varying species on the planet while still remaining a single species. In 20,000 years of artificial selection and preservation of variants that never would have survived in the wild there hasn’t been a single variant with an anatomical feature not characteristic of canines nor has a new species of dog emerged.

The first tiny shrewlike mammals appeared about 150-195 million years ago. Yet DaveScot expects that the transition from wolf to toy poodle in a few thousand years is too slow to account for the change from shrewlike to dog in a period thousands of times longer.

--------------Proudly banned threefour five times by Uncommon Descent.There is only one Tard. The Tard is One.

Dogs are possibly the most widely varying species on the planet while still remaining a single species. In 20,000 years of artificial selection and preservation of variants that never would have survived in the wild there hasn’t been a single variant with an anatomical feature not characteristic of canines nor has a new species of dog emerged.

It depends on your definition of "species". I'm sure some dog races are unable to reproduce with wolves.

Domestication has led to distinct specices. That's the case for a few crops, namely cultivated pea, broad bean, and even lentil (if I'm not mistaken), to name only legumes. They are never found in the wild. They have been completely differentiated from their wild ancestors, in just 10000 years of agriculture or less. However, I don't know about polyploidy in those species.

Dogs are possibly the most widely varying species on the planet while still remaining a single species. In 20,000 years of artificial selection and preservation of variants that never would have survived in the wild there hasn’t been a single variant with an anatomical feature not characteristic of canines nor has a new species of dog emerged.

It depends on you definition of "species". I'm sure some dog races are unable to reproduce with wolves.

Domestication has led to distinct specices. That's the case for a few crops, namely cultivated pea, broad bean, and even lentil (if I'm not mistaken), to name only legumes. They are never found in the wild. They have been completely differentiated from their wild ancestors, in just 10000 years of agriculture or less. However, I don't know about polyploidy in those species.

Good point. That there may not be a distinct barrier between species is one area of evidence discussed by Darwin in Origin of Species. Lions can mate with Tigers and produce fertile offspring, but rarely do in the wild. Shipborne mice speciate rapidly into their new environments. Dogs rarely mate with wolves, but there may be some gene flow. Some dog breeds can't mate directly with certain other dog breeds, but there is substantial gene flow through intermediary breeds. Some plants can spontaneously speciate, and others just as quickly hybridize.

--------------Proudly banned threefour five times by Uncommon Descent.There is only one Tard. The Tard is One.

1 week 2 days agoMy dad once hired a plumber who worked in a faith-based manner

1 week 2 days ago

Look at it this way, perhaps. Just as a job site or factory floor might post a sign saying "51 days without an accident", the Overwhelmed Dunces' list of Recent Comments can serve as a sign claiming "6 days without a single misreprentation."

“Paris - Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life’s origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.

The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory… ”

Then of course in the next paragraph that Lee leaves out:

Quote

But Benedict, whose remarks were published on Wednesday in Germany in the book Schoepfung und Evolution (Creation and Evolution), praised scientific progress and did not endorse creationist or "intelligent design" views about life's origins.

temporo-spacial anomaly on Noah's Ark: fascinating(Next topic for the kids is How Many Angels Can Dance On The Head Of a Pin, and for Kristine - Why Do Chicks Dig Unicorns)

My dad once hired a plumber who worked in a faith-based manner (I PRAYED that the leak stopped - And it did... NOT! Maybe the Reverend Ted Haggard stopped by, and one thing led to another.... next thing you know they're ....well, you know...

--------------Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

It depends on the function of the protein and interdependencies on other proteins

Oh rlly? That helps alot. It depends <blah blah blah>. This guy is unbelievable. He has the time to type in hundreds of words (it just goes on)

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The whole machine must be assembled and working in order produce the parts that make the up machine that makes the parts!

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How’d that happen without a designer envisioning the entire machine in abstract then building all the hundreds of interlocking pieces that make it up simultaneously?

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To compound the problem you need a fully working automobile to gather the parts together to make an automobile.

I think what DS has failed to grasp, as evidenced by the next quote, is that behind every internet blog or site there are also 100's of scientists doing actual research.

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This is the story the chance & necessity pundits ask you to accept and take as a matter of materialistic faith that, impossible as it sounds, eventually science will reveal how it was done without intelligent agency.

chance & necessity pundits??? That says it all about DS . Pundits? It's not pundits that need to be convinced DS...And evolution works at different speeds for DS

Quote

In 20,000 years of artificial selection and preservation of variants that never would have survived in the wild there hasn’t been a single variant with an anatomical feature not characteristic of canines...<snip>Not even something as simple as a retractable claw.

But hang on, I remember at the start we we going to learn something about "when to make a design inference".

it seems premature to rule out exotic forms of intelligent agency that could very well be composed of non-baryonic matter that we only suspect exists through indirect observation of its gravitational effects on normal matter. In fact what we consider normal matter and energy may be the minority component and thus really an atypical form in the big picture

However, a comment from Fross cuts to the chase (methinks Fross is not long for UD!)

Quote

two words:

Lee Strobel.

Let’s assume these guys want a purely scientific debate. Having Lee Strobel on the bill makes it look like a religious seminar aimed at trying to make their views seem scientific. The guy is 100% a Christian apologist and a strict Bible literalist.

Erm, Fross, it's your side that's organised this debate!

Oh, Fross went off script a couple times yesterday. Check out this comment (in part):

Quote

Would something like dog breeding be considered ID? (and therefore something like eugenics?)

TTBOMK, Fross had always been on our side. (s)he has 43 posts here, the last one being on page 466.